4 Memory: reconstructive memory

Question 1

What is reconstructive memory? RM

Answer 1

RM is the idea that memories are not stored perfectly as a replica (as previously thought), they are simply reconstructed from fragments during recall (Bartett, 1932).

Question 2

What is the war of the ghosts study? (what it was, how it was recalled, what he found, what it shows about schemas) RM

Answer 2

British participants read an unfamiliar Native American folk tale (war of the ghosts) and recalled it 15m later.
Bartlett then gave the recalled tale to another participant, and so forth (i.e. Chinese whispers)

• He found that the story was changed. It was shortened by leaving out unfamiliar details. Phrases were also changed to match British culture (e.g. they changed ‘canoe’ to ‘boat’).
• This backs up the idea that memories are reconstructed from bits. It also provides evidence for Schemas.

Question 3

What are schemas and what is their role? RM

Answer 3

Schema’s are a ‘mental package’ of knowledge, e.g. people, places, objects, events (i.e. everything has a schema - like groups).
Schemas are used in everyday situations (a class will use the class schema). They help us process information more efficiently (think of organisation, it’s efficient).

• Bartlett stated that we utilise these schemas to fill in gaps in our memories, leading to possiblealteration and distortionof the original memory.

Question 4

What is a strength of reconstructive memory? (hint - realistic) RM

Answer 4

The research is very realistic. In the real world, we do remember stories like that (e.g. being told something by a friend, or learning history).

• This means that Bartlett’s study is more relevant to real world memory processing.
  However, he did not have controlled methods and had no standardisation for the study. This means that it lacks validity and reliability.

Question 5

What is a weakness of reconstructive memory? (hint - schemas affect memory, but not always…) RM

Answer 5

Memories are not always inaccurate or affected by schemas. For example, in Bartlett’s study, the phrase ‘something black came out of his mouth’ was often recalled, despite it being odd and unfamiliar.

• This suggests that schemas don’t always affect memory when it is unfamiliar, or doesn’t match our culture (only sometimes: like ‘canoe’ to ‘boat’).

Question 6

What is an application of reconstructive memory? (hint - eye witness testimonies)

Answer 6

Helps explain problems with eye witness testimonies. EWT is often unreliable, and people can believe they are being 100% truthful, but they are just 100% confident and wrong. Schemas would suggest that our brain fills in the missing information, so some of it isn’t true (e.g. the story didn’t say ‘boat’).

• This means that we can understand why EWT aren’t always reliable.